


BFFs

by withershins



Series: mutant au [5]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mutants, Concussions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-09 23:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10424166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withershins/pseuds/withershins
Summary: Sidney is a friend in need; Alex is a friend indeed.  All that's left is making the friendship bracelets.





	

**Author's Note:**

> sequel to [Teammate](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5670082)

_2011_

**Can you come to Pittsburgh?**

Alex stares at his phone for longer than a simple English text should take to read.  Dread, an unwelcome intruder, knots low in his belly.

He contemplates three different responses before finally just hitting Sid's number and putting the phone to his ear.

 _"Hey,"_ Sid answers quickly.  Then, not even waiting long enough for Alex to respond, _"I know it's not exactly a great time but you have a few days between games coming up, right?  Would you have time to fly up here one of those days?"_

"Yes," Alex says immediately.  Even if he didn't have time, he'd make it happen anyway.  Sid's been more and more withdrawn since his concussion, pulling away from Alex and Zhenya both, and Alex isn't about to pass up the first chance he's had in months to talk to Sid in person.  To be honest, before Sid's text Alex was probably about a week away from just saying _fuck it_ and hopping on a flight to Pittsburgh anyway, whatever Sid's wishes.

The fact that Sid is asking for him now feels...foreboding.

 _"Good, great,"_ Sidney says.  Alex is not comforted by the note of relief in his voice.  _"Text me when your flight is, I'll pick you up from the airport."_

"I'll take taxi, Sid."

 _"I'm fine to drive right now,"_ Sid disagrees, a touch sulkily.   _"I'll pick you up."_

"Whole internet is gonna know if you pick me up."

_"Well, maybe I'm okay with that.  They've had six years, it's time everyone got over themselves.  We're allowed to be friends."_

Alex doesn't disagree—he's done with the mutant vs mutant rivalry rhetoric as much as any of them—but at the moment, he's more concerned about how the press will spin his arrival in Pittsburgh in relation to Sid's concussion.  For now, though, he tables the argument and just starts booking a flight.

"How's your head?" he asks while scrolling through airlines.

_"Still attached."_

"Mm-hm.  Zhenya's knee?"

_"It's doing better.  Less pain, and the doctors are optimistic about how it's healing.  He's just antsy and won't stop complaining about his brace itching."_

That Sid knows this much is encouraging, hopefully indicative that he's at least stopped pushing Zhenya away as much as before.

After a few more clicks, Alex says, "Okay, got flight for tomorrow morning.  I can stay until early the next morning at latest, then I need to be back for mandatory practice.  That enough time?"

_"More than.  Thanks, Alex.  I appreciate this a lot, especially at such short notice.  I—I'll explain everything when you get here."_

"See you soon, Sid," Alex says and hangs up, even though he's dying to press for more information.  If Sid were willing to explain more over the phone, he'd have already done it.

Alex's imagination runs rampant in the interim hours before he lands in Pittsburgh.  It's too easy to picture all the reasons Sid might want to see him, all of them worst-case scenarios.

He manages to bypass the airport pick-up question by conveniently forgetting to text Sid his arrival time and ignoring his increasingly annoyed messages.  Sid's final text is a clipped, irate, **At Geno's.** Alex has the taxi drop him off right at Zhenya's gates, and the chances of the internet getting wind of his little jaunt to Pennsylvania go down by at least fifty percent.

Zhenya's unsympathetic grin meets him at the door.  Looming at his feet is an enormous black dog with a suspicious resemblance to a wolf.

"Sid's pissed at you," he says, giving Alex a bracing clap on the shoulder.  "Good luck in there, moron."

"What are you doing inflicting your sorry, ugly mug on Sid," Alex shoots back, though privately he's relieved they seem to be keeping each other company.  He gives the dog a friendly pat when it doesn't show any inclination to take his hand off.  "You probably set him back weeks every time he has to lay eyes on you and recoil in horror."

"Sid loves my sorry, ugly mug."  Zhenya, leading the way in deeper towards the kitchen, throws him a cheeky smile.  "Loves it the most, actually."

The sad part is it's true; Sid has proven to have an unfortunately low resistance to Zhenya's questionable charms.  Which isn't to say Alex understands the exact relationship Sid and Zhenya share.  Whatever drum they're marching to, they seem to be the only two hearing it.  In each other's company, they orbit the shared space with the  easy familiarity of an old married couple.  When they touch, it's with the sweetened softness of newlyweds.  When they fall into a private moment, just the two of them sharing a smile, it's like the whole rest of the world just drops away, lost in each other's eyes.  Alex has never third-wheeled so hard in his life as he does when he goes out with Sidney and Zhenya together.

Yet Zhenya still picks up, from what Alex can see, with frequent enough regularity.  And Sidney only smiles at it, amused, with no sign of jealousy or pining.  They are the most confusing pair Alex has ever had the misfortune of knowing.

"You," Sid says as Alex and Zhenya and the dog round the corner to the kitchen, "are an asshole.  I was going to pick you up, you did that on purpose."  He's pointing a wooden spoon at Alex, like maybe he thinks an increased resemblance to a vexed Russian mother is going to make him more intimidating.  He's not exactly wrong, but Alex isn't going to be the one to tell him.

There's a sleek ferret peeking around by Sid's feet, but it quietly skitters out of the room, brushing past Zhenya's ankles as it goes.

"Of course I did that on purpose.  Come here, stop bristling like cat and give me a hug."

Alex holds his arms open wide.  Sid, still looking disgruntled, nevertheless steps into them and lets him squeeze him in a gentle, concussion-careful, affectionate embrace.

Sid is a touch-starved kind of guy, and now that Alex knows _why_ , he's made it a point to offer up as much physical affection as Sid will take.   _Platonic_ physical affection, that is.  He'll leave the physical affection of ambiguously romantic nature to Zhenya's oversized hands.

In his arms, Sid twitches the way he does when he's seeing a vision and trusts his company enough to not bother trying to hide it.  That Alex is now among the number Sid trusts like that warms him more than he thinks Sid knows.  It was a long road to get to that trust, but after Vancouver, Sid, guarded and a touch defiant, had come to Alex and explained everything he and Zhenya had left out at that conversation in the restaurant—everything Alex had expected to be told years earlier.  But he's grown up some, sees Sid more clearly now, and to be among the few who know the full nature of his gift is not a trust he takes lightly.  Sid, softened more towards him every year, seems to realize that.

Alex doesn't say anything about the twitch.  He just tilts to press a smacking kiss to the side of Sid's head and lets him go.

"Thanks for coming," Sid says sincerely, disentangling, though he punctuates this with a swift whack to Alex's hip with the spoon.  "Let me pick you up next time.  Have you had breakfast?"

Alex has had breakfast, but considering he can see and smell what seems to be hearty, tempting homemade oatmeal on the stove, and considering he's a grown hockey player who can always use more meals, he graciously decides to let Sid feed him.  He loads a bowl of oatmeal up with milk and a generous few spoonfuls of jam, ignoring Sid's nose-wrinkle of distaste.  If he didn't want Alex to eat his oatmeal with this much jam he shouldn't have included it with the rest of the add-ons on the counter.

Sid makes up two bowls and hands one to Zhenya.  Zhenya takes it, gives Sid a kiss to the forehead, which is accepted with distracted affection, then Zhenya turns to Alex with a wicked grin and gives him the same.  Alex accepts his kiss with much less sweetness and much more amusement.

"Play nice," Zhenya rumbles cheerfully.  Then he hobbles out with his bowl, four-legged shadow following, leaving Sid and Alex alone with their oatmeal.  Alex raises his eyebrows but doesn't say anything about his departure.

"Have you booked your flight back yet?" Sid asks as they seat themselves at Zhenya's table, sharing the corner between them.

"Tomorrow morning, at six."  He's not thrilled about the early time, and he'll probably have to head straight to practice from the airport, but these are minuscule sacrifices in the face of a friend who needs him. "It's okay if I stay with you tonight?"

"Of course, yeah, I was planning on it.  Unless you'd rather stay with Geno, he's fine with it if that's what you'd prefer."

"Hey."  Alex knocks knees with him, smiling.  "Always happy to stay with you, Sid."

Sid's returning smile is tighter, unhappier than Alex has come to expect.  "I'll understand if you don't feel that way this time."

There's that dread in Alex's gut again.  "What's going on?  Everything okay?"

"Just, you know," Sid says with a forced attempt at a light tone, "my usual weird shit getting weirder.  Nothing too awful."

Taking a closer look at Sid's face, noticing the pallor and the tightness around his eyes, Alex makes an executive decision.  "Eat first," he orders, pointing his spoon at Sid's bowl.  "Then we can talk."

"Right.  Yeah, let's eat first."  Sid takes a determined bite of oatmeal.  "You know, there was another thing I wanted to talk to about," he says, moving the food to one cheek to talk around it.  "I'd have come to you in D.C. myself, but the doctors don't think that that much travel is a good idea right now."  He makes a face as he swallows.  "So, sorry about having to ask you to come here instead."

"Tell you already, it's no problem.  And if you're gonna feed me like this, I'll come to Pittsburgh every morning for you," Alex adds with a wink.

Sid gets caught halfway between a smile directed at Alex and a grimace directed at Alex's jam-soaked oatmeal.  He seems to be forcefully holding himself back from making the requisite "want any oatmeal with your jam?" joke.

"You're a really good friend, Alex," Sid says, having apparently gotten the bad joke pushed back from the tip of his tongue.  "And that's...kind of the other thing I wanted to talk to you about."

Alex raises an eyebrow, unbearably curious, but he makes himself take another bite and say, "After breakfast.  All serious talk can wait for after breakfast, okay?"

"After breakfast," Sid agrees, and the two tuck in.

There's something intrinsically satisfying about watching someone he's worried about eat a substantial meal, perhaps his grandmother's blood in him.  Watching Sid put away two bowls of oatmeal, knowing he still has an appetite, is at least encouraging.  The dread in Alex's gut sits a little quieter.

When their bowls are scraped clean and set to soak, they relocate to the TV room.  There's a large, deadly-looking bird, possibly a hawk, perched high on a bookcase surveying the room, but Sid doesn't pay it any mind beyond a quick glance.  His expression has turned grim and focused, and for once Alex doesn't try to prod him into a more cheerful mien.  He just lets Sid sit and take as much time as he needs chewing over his opening words.

"First off," Sid begins, voice resolute now his script's been decided, "I want to apologize for something."

Alex barely manages to quell his expression of surprise.  Sid doesn't apologize—no, that's wrong.  Sid apologizes frequently, sometimes in excess, but for little things, tiny nothings: calling too close to dinner, not responding to a text within a certain time frame, jostling someone when he gets up from a table.  The rare larger offenses, when they happen, seldom get admitted to, much less apologized for.

"Do you remember our first year here?  The first time we really met?"

"I remember," Alex says, grinning a little, still able to picture Sid's face, framed in lingering baby fat, squinting at him distrustfully.  "You were so suspicious."

"I was."  Sid doesn't seem as amused by the memory.  "Suspicious and kind of rude.  And I didn't even give you a chance."

Alex, sobering, starts to put the pieces together.  "This is the thing you want to apologize for.  Being suspicious?"  Knowing what he knows now, he feels Sid had understandable cause to be prickly and wary of whoever he wanted, but he doesn't say this.  He lets Sid speak.

"I made a lot of judgments about you before I really met you.  And the really stupid part is, looking back, I'm pretty sure those judgments were because of your mutation.  I should've known better.  But I—I let myself be influenced by all the shit people were saying about you, even though they were the same people saying shit about me."  Sid's gaze, direct and frank, doesn't shy away from Alex.  "Because you didn't keep yourself in the box I thought mutants should keep themselves in.  You didn't toe the line everyone expects us to, you didn't treat your mutation the way we're supposed to in order to make ourselves more palatable to humans.  You were—are still—so aggressively exultant in it.  That scared a lot of people over here, and they came after you extra hard because of it."

Sidney's not wrong about that.  Alex would like to say he knew what he was getting into when he came over from Russia intent on pissing people off with how much he loved himself and his gift.  He'd known people would hate him for it.  But the fervor, the intensity, the insidious _invasiveness_ of the hate had caught even him off guard.  He doesn't regret it, but he won't say he was entirely prepared for it, either.

Sid continues:  "You were just as alone in the league as I was, but that didn't even occur to me.  I didn't think how it must've felt for you to come over here where you knew people weren't going to like you, and then be met with hostility and suspicion from the one person you might expect to understand, to be on your side."  He smiles unhappily, a depreciating duck of his head.  "I could've been a much better fellow mutant to you.  But that was—that was where I was at then, and I'm sorry for what it meant for you.  I'm really sorry, Alex."

Alex takes a second to coalesce his thoughts before he speaks.  "Thank you, Sid," he starts with, because Sid obviously put a lot of thought into this apology and he wants to acknowledge that, not dismiss it as if it means nothing.  "For apology, that means a lot for me."  Sid nods, grave and earnest.  "First year here, you're right, it was lonely.  But I learned very fast who on my team was okay with me—exactly me," Alex clarifies, sparking a quick flame in one hand to illustrate, "and who wasn't.  And I found good friends in some of my teammates who saw my fire and liked me with it.  I wasn't all alone for long."

"I'm glad," Sid says.  "But that doesn't take away—"

"It doesn't," Alex agrees.  "But not your job then, either, to be my friend."

"No, it wasn't.  But it might have been nice, right?  For both of us."

Alex smiles.  "Yeah.  But we're friends now?"

Sid nods immediately.  "For sure."

"Such good friends that maybe the media shits themselves a little bit if they know," Alex adds slyly, and Sid laughs.

"Probably, yeah."

"And Sid?  You know I did sort of same thing to you, right?  Before I knew about your gift."

Sid frowns slightly.  "What do you mean?  Same thing?"

Gently Alex explains, "When I come over here, I expected you to be mutant the way I wanted you to be mutant.  I put a lot of pressure on you to tell me about your gift, and to tell Zhenya, and to tell everyone.  So sure I know what's best for you, yeah?  I tried to make you fit what I thought you should be."

Sid looks startled.  "So...you don't still think I should go public with my mutation?"

Alex tilts his head.  He can't deny the way his soul still shouts at the idea of Sidney Crosby forcing North America to really acknowledge what he is and leaving no doubt that he thinks himself fantastic for it.  No matter what Alex and Zhenya do, they will always be foreigners here.  There's only so much they can manage.  Alex has been able to change some minds by unapologetically loving who he is and what he can do, he's not ignoring that, but there are minds and hearts he can't reach that a fellow North American might.  And were Sidney Crosby that North American, so watched and admired as he is?  There's no telling the impact it could have.

But Sidney Crosby is not just Sidney Crosby anymore; he's now also Alex's friend.  And Alex knows a little more about where he came from to get here.

"If it's what you want?  Then yeah, I think you should.  Maybe someday we talk about it again, see if you've changed your mind, and if yes then Zhenya and I can have your back when you tell everyone about visions.  But I'm done trying to force you if it's not what you want."  He smiles, feeling very fond.  "See?  So maybe we both learn stuff since we're rookies."

"I guess we have."  Sid smiles back, but there's a shiver of something around the edges, pain or distraction, that catches Alex's attention.  "I just—I feel like such a shit, having spent so long keeping you at arm's length, and then the second _I_ need support I've apparently got no problem turning around and asking you to drop everything to come help me.  You deserve better than that.  But I—I don't know what else to do.  I need advice, and...Geno and I both thought of you."  His gaze doesn't waver from Alex's, almost uncomfortably direct.  "So I need to acknowledge that, first.  You're not under any obligation here whatsoever.  We'll still be friends if all this today isn't something you want to get involved in."

"Hey.  It's fine, Sid, I'll tell you if something is too much.  Just talk to me.  You okay?  How's head?"

Sid looks away. "Uh, honestly?  I'm not sure," he says tightly.  "Not great.  It's not exactly getting better.  Sometimes I'm fine, no symptoms at all, but every single time I get on the ice...it's bad.  It's been months and—it was getting better, for a time, but then it stopped and I… It's not getting better."

"Fuck."  Alex's limbs feel cold.  He'd known this was a possibility when Sid had texted, but he'd hoped...he'd hoped for better.

Sid's hands clench together.  "That's not actually the thing I wanted to tell you about, though.  It's about my abilities.  When I took that second hit, against Tampa, it...did something weird to my mutation.  Or to the way my head interacts with my mutation, we're not exactly sure what the fuck is going on."

"Weird?"

Sid takes a big swallow and says, "I think I've started to actually _see_ death."

"Sid."  Though he struggles to keep his voice calm, true nightmarish, seeping terror freezes Alex's insides.  "That's always been your gift.  This isn't new, you've always been able to do this."  If Sid's forgotten this much…

"No, shit, sorry," Sid says, instantly contrite.  "I didn't explain that well.  I mean, it's not just the visions anymore, there's something else.  Since that second hit, I've started seeing this...mist stuff around people, around everyone.  It's uh, white, kinda silvery if I look at it too hard.  It just...hovers around people, their whole body.  And at first I thought it was just the concussion, you know?  That the hit just really fucked my head up, and I was seeing things.  I was really freaked out."

Alex makes a murmur of understanding.  He's trying his best to mask it, but he's feeling pretty freaked out himself.

"But then I started noticing… There's a connection."  Sid reaches for Alex across the couch they share, slowly enough to give plenty of time to pull away.  Alex doesn't, and Sid wraps a cool hand around his wrist.  "Today, around you, the mist is really thin, wispy."  He's looking straight at Alex, and it's impossible to miss the way his eyes briefly cloud, turn distracted.  They sharpen again an instant later.  "Your death vision is really faint and far-off.  That's how it works.  The more mist someone has around them, the sooner their current allotted death and the clearer their vision."

He releases Alex's wrist.

"I think the mist has to be some sort of physical manifestation—representation—of death itself.  Or the potential of it, maybe.  Something along those lines."

"Sid…"  Alex shakes his head, trying sharpen his thoughts.  "This is...big.  Did anything else change about your gift?"

"I'm seeing visions more frequently.  You remember how I told you that if I had a lot of contact with someone, I wouldn't get as many visions when I touched them?  Now…" he shrugs.  "It's still not every time, but it's more frequent than before."

On a hunch, Alex asks, "Visions getting stronger, too?"

Sid nods, not looking surprised Alex thought of this.  "Yeah.  It still varies depending on how close the death is, but, just baseline comparisons?  They're getting stronger.  More detailed, too.  And sometimes, when I hold my hand like this near someone," he demonstrates on himself, one hand hovering a few inches above the other, "not quite touching them, just kind of dipping into the mist around them, I'll still get a vision off of them."

Alex bites his lip.  He's read his share of modern research into mutations, some for coursework and some for his own interest, and everything he's ever come across says changes like Sid's experienced are significant.

"Sid.  You know this sounds like more than just concussion, right?  I'm not sure you're gonna go back to how you were, once concussion heals."

Sid meets his eyes grimly.  "Yeah.  And…there's more.  No one else knows about this part, just Geno and me."

Trepidation raising it's head within him, he says, "Yeah?"

"A week ago, Geno and I were picking up some groceries.  When I walked in the store, the mist was there drifting through the whole place, just all over.  It wasn't obviously connected to anyone like it usually is, but I noticed it got thicker at the back of the store, by the dairy.  I followed it, and when I walked where it was more concentrated I got one of the visions like what I got in Vancouver, with Shea."

Alex nods, remembering Sid had once called those "imminent death visions", different from his regular.

"I realized there was a guy over by the eggs who was going to have a stroke in about ten minutes.  So Geno and I, we were about to call an ambulance, right?  'Cause I can't—I couldn't stop a stroke from happening the way I could stop Shea from eating something he'd choke on or stop someone from accidentally stepping in front of a bus or whatever.  There was nothing I could do.  And I remember standing there, feeling kinda helpless and angry about everything, and I just...reached over suddenly and stopped Geno from finishing dialing.  He was confused, obviously, wondering if I'd changed my mind since it'd be tricky to explain how we knew to call an ambulance for a stroke that hadn't happened yet.  But that wasn't it.  I…"

Sid goes quiet, and Alex surreptitiously tries to relax his muscles that have been holding all his tension for him.

After a moment, eyes on his hands, Sid continues.  "I don't know what thought I was reacting to, or why it occurred to me to try this.  It just...I was standing there, and I just suddenly knew what to do.  I can't even really describe how I did it.  But I took a breath, and I started...pulling all the mist towards myself."

"What."

Sid looks up to meet his eyes, his smile cautious.  "I know it sounds crazy.  I can't even tell you what I was thinking at the time, it was almost like being in a trance or something.  But it worked.  The mist started drifting towards me, and as it reached me it just sort of sunk into me and disappeared.  It took a couple minutes, but I was able to clear the whole place of the extra mist around that guy.  And get this part: when the moment came that he was supposed to have the stroke, nothing happened.  I mean, he was absolutely fine, he didn't have the stroke, and _I didn't either._  I didn't experience it in his place like I normally would've."

"You didn't pass out?" Alex asks, mouth desert-dry.  He has to wet his lips and clear his throat, because shit.  This is huge.

Sid looks shifty.  "Um.  Well not exactly, no."

"Sid?"

"I didn't pass out."

"Okay.  But what are you not telling me?"

They're interrupted by the scritch of claws on the flooring followed by Zhenya's heavy, limping tread.

"What he's not telling," Zhenya says in Russian, lowering himself into the chair by Sid's end of the couch, dog settling at his feet, "is that after he took all the stupid death-mist into himself, he had a blinding, completely debilitating headache for three days straight.  I was able to get him out to the car discreetly enough, but by the time we were back home he was so dizzy I had to call Kuni and Tanger to help him into the house.  He spent three days in bed looking like a sick dog."

Alex looks at Sid, eyebrows raised.  Sid, who doesn't know Russian but clearly recognizes unsympathetic tattling when he hears it, scowls at Zhenya.

Zhenya gives him an unimpressed look in return.  He says, switching to English, "You more trouble than box of baby cats, Sid.  Give everyone heart attack."

"I'm fine now.  My concussion was bad before this happened, it's not like this fucked it up more.  The headache I got, it wasn't a _concussion_ headache."

"How you know that?  Don't know anything about this.  That's whole point, know _nothing_."

"Can you still pull the mist like that?" Alex interjects.  "Have you tried since?"

"I tried, yeah," Sid starts, and Zhenya snorts unhappily and looks away—clearly a point of previous contention between them.  "But I can't figure out how to do it again.  I don't think it's impossible, though.  If I could practice, maybe find someone who could _help_ —"

"Help you break head even more!" Zhenya huffs.

"Geno has concerns," Sid says flatly, looking at Alex.  "So he wanted to be here for this part of the conversation."

"Make sure Sid doesn't infect you with crazy too," mutters Zhenya.

"I'm not going to be stupid about it—"

Alex raises his hands, stopping them both.  "What's this about?"

Sid and Zhenya share a look, Sid resolute and Zhenya unmoved.  Zhenya looks away first.

"Most stubborn," he says under his breath.  Louder, he adds, "Tell him.  Maybe he can tell you how much you _crazy_."

Expression softening, Sid says, "I'm not going to do anything if we decide it's not safe.  That's why I wanted to talk it over with you—both of you," he looks to Alex, "before I decide what to do.  Okay?"

Zhenya in a snit can be a terrible, lengthy affair, but apparently it's no match for Sidney Crosby's wide, honest eyes.  He loses his offended air immediately.  "I know, Sid.  Go ahead, tell Sasha.  We figure this out."

It's all very sweet, but Alex is reaching the end of his patience.  He nods his chin at Sid, prompting him to explain.

"You understand the significance of what happened, right?" Sid says, eagerness sparking.  "In the grocery store?  I didn't just stop an action from happening that would have killed him, like with Shea, or my sister.  With them, that was something I did in...the physical world, to stop their deaths.  Something anyone could have done, once they knew it was going to happen.  In the store, I _took the stroke away_.  I...erased it from ever happening.  I think that's why I didn't repossess the death like usual—you know, how I experience it in their place?  Because there _wasn't_ a death to repossess anymore.  It was just...gone from existence."

"Headache, though," Alex points out, trying to stay even-keeled in the face of Sid's growing, bright-eyed excitement.  "Had to stay in bed for three days."

"Yeah," Sid admits.  "So I need to figure out if that's just a temporary cost, like when I used to repossess a death, or if it's doing actual damage to me."

"And figure out how it connects to concussion," adds Alex.

" _Thank you_ ," says a vindicated Zhenya.

Sid looks confused.  "You said it yourself, though.  These changes—I'm getting _stronger_ in my abilities, my mutation.  It's more than just the concussion."

"Maybe," Alex allows.  "But these changes happen same time as when you get concussion.  So concussion might not be causing this, but could still be related.  Especially if you got concussion symptoms after doing this thing with mist."

"Okay, sure," says Sid, with what feels like deliberate equanimity, pointedly holding himself back from sounding sulky.  Zhenya snorts.  "I understand what you're saying.  So you agree with Geno, then?"

"If he thinks we need to figure out what exactly is going on in your head, before we go around testing new powers?  Then yes, I agree."

"But if everything checks out?" Sid asks.  "If there's no relation between my new abilities and my concussion.  You think I should try to get stronger at controlling the mist, right?"

There's a strange intensity to Sid's energy, and Alex doesn't need Zhenya's meaningful glower to feel cautious.

"Why?  Why get stronger?"

Sid blinks.  "It's obvious, right?  If I learn how to do this at will, if I can _control_ it, I could save... _anyone_ from dying.  Anyone!  Not just those like Shea or my sister, deaths I could directly interfere with.  I could do so much.  It's...the next level of my mutation.   _You_ understand, right?  Why I want to push this?"

Alex sidesteps this last question.  "So you save someone from dying, but then spend three days in bed?  Save someone else, then three days in bed again, over and over until your head cracks open from so many headaches?"

"It might just be something I have to practice.  Maybe that reaction was so severe just because it was my first time doing it."

"What if not?  What if that's what happens every time?  Can't live like that, Sid.  Can't play hockey."

"I'm already not playing hockey," Sid bites out.  "My head—I've got to face the possibility that I'm never going to get better.  Okay?  I can't even get on the ice.  What if this is it?  At least this way I can—I can fucking _do_ something, something that's making a difference!"

"So, what, you just gonna give up already?  Give up on playing again?"

Sid's jaw tightens, an obstinate flash in his eyes.  "I haven't given up.  But I need to be realistic.  This...at least it gives me something to hope for."  He meets Alex's gaze challengingly, but Alex doesn't rise to the bait.

"So we find answers.  You've seen head specialists so far, right?  For concussion?"  Sid nods.  "What about mutant specialist?"

Sid glances at Zhenya, who's petting his dog's head with focused nonchalance.

"No.  I looked for the specialist I saw as a kid, who helped me figure out I could repossess deaths, but I've had no luck finding him.  Geno said—you've got connections, right?  People who've studied mutations like mine?  I...need someone I know I can trust.  It's not just about privacy anymore.  I've been thinking about it, and with the way my abilities have changed—"

"Dangerous," Alex agrees.  Sid looks sharply at him, so he explains, "Sid, if you ever figure out how to control mist, that's gonna make you incredibly powerful.  Stop any death, change the future?  Gonna up your classification for sure.  You don't want that information going on any government record."

Sid swallows.  "I know," he says softly.  He looks surprised Alex understands this, but Alex isn't a fool.  He's lived here for six years now, and he keeps his eyes open to what goes on in their community.  Here in North America, if you know where to look to see the proof, there are certain types of elite gifts that garner a dangerous sort of attention—the sort of attention that might get one of their kind, even someone so high-profile, mysteriously vanished.  It's rare, but then, gifts like Sid's are rarer.

"Death repossession, that's not on your record anywhere, right?" he asks, and Sid nods.

"Right.  My parents were able to keep that part hidden."

"Good."  Alone, the death repossession isn't powerful enough to be dangerous for Sid, especially limited as it is by circumstance, but with the way his gift seems to be changing and growing it's better no one suspect he can do anything more than have death visions.  "Sid, you trust me?  To find someone safe to ask about this?"

Sid looks at him only a short moment before answering, "Yeah.  Yeah, I do."

Pleased, Alex nods.  "Okay.  So here's what we gonna do.  Give me two weeks, and I'll find someone who can help us figure out what's going on.  I have idea of someone who might be good, but I need to check few things out first.  Until then, don't try to pull mist again.  Just rest head and do what doctors say.  We'll go from there."

"Sounds smart," Zhenya says pointedly.  He's somehow acquired two more animals on his lap since Alex last paid him attention, the sharp-eyed ferret from before and something curled up by his side that is either an enormous red cat or a fox.  It raises its head lazily—definitely a fox.

Sid lets out a long breath, shoulders bleeding tension.  "Yes, okay, sounds good," he admits.  "Two weeks, we can do that.  I can do that."  He glances down at his hands, and when he looks back up at Alex, there's a focused sort of warmth to his gaze.  Alex smiles to see it.  "Thank you again, for coming.  It means a lot to me.  This all has been...kind of overwhelming."  The warmth transfers to Zhenya as he turns towards him, turning sweeter.  "Geno's been putting up with so much shit from me lately, I can't even tell you.  I really appreciate both of you."

"Sappy," Zhenya accuses, but his smile is too full of satisfied affection and his dog's tail is wagging with too much force for it to hold any water.

This is exactly what Alex means about the third-wheeling.

He clears his throat and says, "Of course, Sid.  And we're gonna figure this out, okay?"

Sid's smile sobers.  "Yeah.  I hope so."  More determined this time, "Yeah, we'll figure something out."  It's close to the Sid Alex knows from the ice, and he can't help grinning.

"Fucking right we're gonna."  He checks the time on his phone and decides there's no time like right now to get started, before it gets too late in Moscow.  "Zhenya, can I borrow your office? I'll need some hours somewhere quiet, gonna make some calls," he says.  Zhenya nods, sleepy eyes watching him close.  "Sid?  You just rest, try to look pretty, okay?"

"I always look pretty," Sid says, lips twitching, and Alex chuckles.

"Should be easy, then."

He gets his laptop from his backpack, left by the front door, and Zhenya shows him to the office.  There he stays shut up for several hours, placing calls and composing careful emails.  He stays cautious, not saying anything that could lead back to Sid and only talking to those he can trust to be discreet.

By the time Zhenya comes to drag him to lunch, he feels positive about the leads he's found.  He can't do anything more at the moment, waiting now for responses to his emails, so he allows himself the next several hours to be spent in Zhenya's and Sid's company.

Alex loves his team.  He fucking adores them.  But there's something about being around his own kind, an easy comfort, that just can't be replicated anywhere else.  He basks in it.

Here Zhenya's animals can wander in and out, lavishing quiet affection on their favorite person, a study in Disney-levels of non-aggression.  Here Alex is welcome to show off the new tricks he's been practicing with his fire, delighted by Sid's glowing appreciation and curiosity.  Here Sid can relax and not worry about concealing the way he sees the world.

"Is there any part of you that can get burnt?" Sid asks him after Alex's gone through his repertoire of favorite tricks.  His eyes are sharp and attentive, and if nothing else, Alex is glad to be able to provide an opportunity of distraction.

"My hair," Alex admits.  "Doesn't hurt, but any body hair just burns right off."  He holds an arm out for Sid to inspect its typical smooth, hairless state.  "I don't usually bother to try to keep it on me."

Sid eyes it with interest.  "Oh, wow.  I'd never noticed that."  He briefly rubs a palm against the forearm, and when he smiles up at Alex it's with eyes still a little clouded from a vision.  It takes him several seconds before he refocuses to say, "Completely smooth, huh."

"Yep."  Alex grins and tugs the waistline of his pants down, almost to the start of his dick.  "And down here too, see?  No pubes."

Sid laughs, and Zhenya nearby, watching vaguely as he coos sweetly to the bird of prey now settled on his shoulder, rolls his eyes.

"What about your face?" Sid asks.  "Your beard and eyebrows and head hair.  How do you keep that?"

"Mostly I just don't use my head for fire, if I don't want to go around bald.  Good for quick shave, though.  But I do have special grease I can put in my hair.  It doesn't stop it from burning eventually, but it slows this down a lot.  With grease I can keep flames going for several minutes before my hair catches fire."

Sid nods, processing.  "And what about fire you didn't create yourself?  That doesn't burn you, right?"

"Right, it's still good.  Just, feels a little bit different."  He pauses, considering.  "It's a little like the difference between having sex with someone and masturbating—your own touch or someone else's, you know?"

"Mm-hm," Sid hums, but the sound is closer to noncommittal than affirmative.  And Alex is hit over the head by a realization which maybe should have occurred to him much quicker: Sid's gift, behaving normally, is activated by physical touch.  That could cause serious minefields in the realm of physical intimacy.  It's entirely feasible, perhaps even likely, that Sid's never had sex at all.

Alex, trying to be subtle, slides his eyes between his two friends.  This new understanding doesn't exactly make the picture he's seeing any clearer, but it at least adds another piece to the puzzle that is Sid and Zhenya.

Zhenya (and his bird) is regarding him far too shrewdly and suspiciously; so, in an attempt to obfuscate his sudden revelation, Alex says to Sid, "Once I take control of outside fire, take it into my body with my gift, then it feels same as my own fire.  It only feels different before I tell it how to move, what to do.  Before I make it mine."

Sidney smiles up at him, unquestionably in earnest.  "Your gift is incredible, Alex."

This artless sentence has the dual effect of making Zhenya forget his suspicion and smile over at them like a proud papa, and making Alex's heart squeeze with a burst of fond warmth.

"Thank you, Sid," he smiles.  "Hey—want to see what happens when I superheat water?"

Sid's eyes light up.  "Oh yeah, for sure."

Dinner rolls around, and Alex is treated to new levels of domesticity as he gets to watch Sid and Zhenya whip up a meal together with easy familiarity.  Tonight, Sid mans the counter while Zhenya stays mostly posted at the table, leg propped up as he chops whatever Sid gives him.  But Alex can see the echoes of where, were they both fully mobile, they'd be brushing shoulders and sharing space and bumping into each other deliberately just so they could swap teasing smiles.  He knows domesticity when he sees it.

The pumpkin curry is delicious, mellow and almost sweet, and as the sky outside darkens, Alex pushes his emptied plate away with a loudly appreciateive, contented sound.  The flight between D.C. and Pittsburgh isn't so long.  Surely it's worth making more often, when their schedules align, if it means the more frequent company of his own kind and home-cooked meals like this one.

After dinner Alex spends another hour in the office responding to the emails that have trickled in thus far.  When he emerges again, Zhenya and Sid are close together on the couch, curled towards each other in serious discussion, a sea of furry bodies spread evenly across their two laps.  He doesn't mean to eavesdrop, but they don't see him immediately and he can't help but catch the end of Sid saying, "It's fine, G, I'm serious.  I need to get used to sleeping alone, anyway.  Your knee's getting better, you're gonna be cleared for more travel soon."

Alex noisily drops onto the chair next to the couch, alerting them to his presence.  Sid smiles distractedly at him, but Zhenya largely ignores him.  Instead, in a low, sweet tone, he says to Sid, "Stay tonight, is fine.  Sasha not mind."

Alex raises his eyebrows.  "Sasha not mind what, exactly?"

Sid shifts, hand pausing where it had been stroking the fox on his lap.  "I told you how, since my mutation changed, I've been getting visions more frequently, even from people I touch a lot?"

"Yeah."

"Well before, Geno and I, we used to—we touched enough that I hardly ever got visions from him.  It's not a big deal, I can deal with it, but it's been a little weird getting used to seeing his visions all the time again.  So we did a little experimenting.  We found that if we slept together," he says unflinchingly, and Alex, with supreme self control, does not change his expression an inch, "it made a difference.  As long as we're touching most of the night.  If I get any visions off him during the night, I almost always sleep through them.  And the amount of visions I get from him during the day has gone down by a lot, comparatively."

"So you've been staying here, in Zhenya's bed?" Alex says, proud of himself for managing this with a straight face and a non-reactive tone.  "But then why did you offer this morning to let me stay with you, at your house?  You think, what, I'm gonna be weird about it?"

"It wasn't that.  We just...realize this is a weird situation and didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

Alex is quiet for a moment, parsing what isn't being said.  He thinks of everything he's seen of Sid and Zhenya, the intimacy of their body language and the significance of their history together.

He says, "You two have...uncommon friendship, yeah?  You're worried I'm gonna make assumptions?"

Sid meets his eyes with an even stare.  "You can ask us, if you want to know.  We don't mind."

"Yeah?"  Alex taps his thumb against his knee, looking between the two of them.  Zhenya seems relaxed and loose-limbed, happy to let Sid take the reigns on this, but Alex knows him; it's no coincidence he's petting a 120-pound monster dog on his lap right now.  "'Cause I wasn't gonna make it my business."

"First time ever," Zhenya snorts quietly.

"You can ask," Sid repeats.

Alex has never been accused of being too cautious.  "Okay," he says.  "Are you guys together?  In any way?"

Sid smiles, looking wry.  "Well, we're not... _not_ together.  Honestly, we've never really found an easy definition for what we are."  He glances at Zhenya, who nods once encouragingly.  "But yeah.  We're a unit, I guess, in a way that's more committed and less platonic than friendship.  But we don't really fit most definitions of dating, either.  We just kind of...are.  Together."

Alex takes this in, shifting all the pieces around in his mind. "Who else knows?"

"That we've actually explained it to ourselves?  No one.  Some of the team have their own theories of what's going on, but they aren't quite right.  And until they ask us to confirm…" Sid shrugs.  "We're not in a hurry to tell them.  Flower's definitely got a bet running about it, anyway—no reason to spoil their fun too early."

"No one win it," Zhenya puts in with a small grin.  "All wrong answers.  Dating?  No.  Just friends?  No.  Fuck buddies?  No."

"They really shouldn't make bets with such narrow definitions," Sid agrees, a matching sparkle in his eye.  Alex laughs.

"You are so mean!" he says, charmed.  "Let me guess, you guys probably have so much fun confusing everyone, make some people think one thing, make other people think something else.  Right?"

"I'm not confirming anything," Sid says with a grin that confirms everything.

"Sure, sure."  Alex shakes his head, smiling cheerfully.  "Then thank you, for telling me.  And don't worry, I'm not gonna tell them anything."

"Thanks.  It's not really a secret—not from the team, anyway.  It's more of a...question that hasn't been asked yet."

"Makes sense."

"And the reason we were thinking of having me stay at my house tonight was just… You know Geno has sex with other people.  I didn't want you to assume anything after seeing us share a bed  and think he was cheating on me or something."

"I get it.  And I appreciate explanation."  Alex isn't going to claim he completely understands now, but at least he has a better template in which to arrange the pieces of the puzzle.  He suspects that, however long he knows them, he's never going to completely make sense of Sid and Zhenya.  It's comforting, in a way—the idea that the two of them are always going to be just a little bit inexplicable to everyone but themselves.

"It is a little strange," Sid says with a quirked smile.

"Long as you guys are happy and on same page together, that's all I care about."

Zhenya grins wickedly.  "Anything else, he just being nosy.  Look how big his nose is, he can't help."

"You're one to talk of big noses," Alex snipes back happily.  "Yours is so big your chin never sees sun."

Several pleasant minutes are spent trading insults with Zhenya, until Sid, amused, interrupts.

"Alex, you said your flight is at six tomorrow?"

Alex checks his watch.  "Yeah, probably should go to bed now, have to get up early.  I better call taxi now, too, and set up pick up time for morning."

"I'll call one for you," Sid offers, and Alex raises an eyebrow.

"Not gonna say you'll drive me yourself?"

Sid grins.  "As early as you'll have to leave?  You can take a taxi.  Or better yet, I'll call Jordy and make him take you.  He still owes me for a shootout bet we made, this'll be the perfect way to cash it in."

Alex laughs. "Sounds good.  Zhenya, usual guest room?"

There's a spark of mischief in Zhenya's smile as he says, "No, that one dirty right now.  You can use upstairs room, very nice view.  My family usually use."

Feeling suspicious, but not enough to press, Alex just shrugs and says, "Sure, works okay for me."

"Okay, I show you where."  Zhenya shoos the animals from his lap, several jolting awake from abbreviated naps.  "You call Jordy now?" he asks Sid, and Sid nods.

"Yeah, I'll be up in a few."

Zhenya, easy as anything, brushes a short kiss to Sid's lips before he stands.  When he turns to Alex, Alex regards him with a sardonically cocked eyebrow.

"Gonna give me one too?"

"Make face less ugly, we see," Zhenya says cheerfully.  "Come on, upstairs."

A little over half of the animals decide to trail after Zhenya and Alex, but the rest stay with Sid, taking advantage of the space Zhenya left behind to cuddle in against Sid's other side.

"Goodnight," Sid offers, his phone in one hand and the other hand buried in fur.

"Night, Sid."

Upstairs, as most of their following animals split to spill down the hallway towards Zhenya's bedroom, Alex says in quiet Russian, "Hey.  What's your opinion of how he's doing?"

Zhenya's expression sobers, drooping.  "Here at home, around only a small number of people?  He does a lot better.  Sometimes it's like he's completely better.  But going out, especially among crowds—that's much harder for him.  I'm not sure he even realizes how bad he gets sometimes."

"Bad how?"

"If we're lucky, he's just distracted, faraway.  Like he's a little lost in that mist of his.  It took me five minutes to get his attention once when we stopped by practice to see the guys, he was just so overwhelmed by visions.  If we're not lucky, the head injury symptoms flare up and he gets dizzy and disoriented and has to go sit in a dark room, like the early days of the concussion.  And he still throws up most times he steps on the ice."

"Fuck."

"Yeah.  He doesn't want to admit it, but it seems clear to me the concussion is linked to his stronger abilities.  And…" Zhenya rubs the back of his neck.  "I'm worried about how obsessed he's gotten with the idea of saving people from death.  Not just because I think it damages him when he does."

"Yeah?  Then why else?"

"It's difficult to put into words. Think of it this way: you understand things about fire that almost no one else does, right?  Because of your gift."  Alex nods.  "Sid's like that with death.  Growing up he'd seen so much of it, but, with only a few exceptions, it wasn't a force he could really control.  That shaped his relationship with death, helped him reconcile how much death was part of his life.  But now...say that he does learn to control it.  Now _he_ can decide who lives.  And maybe he can say who dies, too, if it turns out his powers can work in reverse.  Pushing the mist instead of pulling it."

Unimpressed, Alex says, "You think he's going to go mad with power, or something?"

Zhenya scowls at him.  "Of course not.  Don't take this lightly."

"I'm not.  I'm just a little concerned you apparently think Sid's going to suddenly go around killing people with his death mist."

"It's not about what he _will_ do, it's about what he _can_ do.  I'm worried it's uprooting everything he knows about himself, his gift, the world."

Alex tilts his head back and forth.  "Maybe.  It's a moot point for now, though.  First thing that needs to be addressed is if the changes in Sid's gift are from his concussion, or at least if they're making it worse.  Trauma-induced changes like this… Let's just say they're not always a good thing."

"And you really think you can find someone to help?"

"Yeah, I do.  There are a number of people who study such things, safe people, and it's just a matter of asking the right questions to find them."

Zhenya's dark eyes soften.  "You're an okay person, sometimes.  Once in a while.  Thank you for doing this for Sid."

"You know how it is.  We look out for each other."

"Yes.  But Sid, he's still learning this.  So thank you."

"Sometimes I think you're still learning this too, Zhenya," Alex says, mock disapproving.  "How many times in the last month did you ignore my texts?  You think I'm sending those for my own health?  Pick up your phone once in a while and use it the way God intended!"

"No one, especially not God, ever intended for phones to be used to subject me to your terrible humor and your out-of-control mother-hen impulses.  I'll answer when you say something worthwhile."  Zhenya gives him a condescending pat on the shoulder.  "If you need attention and validation, try Sid next time."

"Zhenya.  You know you love me."

"Go to bed, idiot."

 

The next morning, Alex only briefly entertains the idea of stuffing his phone, still blaring its alarm, under the pillow and rolling back over into sleep, for a few weak-willed seconds.  He drags himself out of bed, blearily shoves his phone charger into his backpack, then shuffles into his clothes.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, he finds a sleepy-eyed Staal—he assumes it's the Penguin one—hunched over a throw-away cup of coffee at the counter.

"Hey," Staal grunts in true early-morning greeting.  "Coffee for you there."  He points to another cup, closer to the edge of the counter.

"Thanks."  Alex scoops it up and takes an appreciative sip.

"Sid made me get you it.  But uh, yeah, you're welcome."  Staal suddenly takes a second, closer look at him, eyes flipping between him and the stairs he just descended.  "Um, did you you just come from up…?  Aren't Geno's guest rooms on ground floor?"  Staal's cheeks are flooding a gentle pink, and Alex isn't entirely sure why—but he's pretty sure it has something to do with the sparkle of Zhenya's mischief last night.

He shrugs casually.  "Slept upstairs."

" _Where_ upstairs?"

Alex gives him a look that hopefully says he suspects Staal of being deliberately dim.  "Bedroom.  Where else?"

"You're not really saying—you're fucking with me.   _Geno's_ bedroom?  No.  You and—?"

Ah.  Staal, it appears, is not aware of the upstairs guest room.  Hiding a mischievous sparkle of his own, Alex raises a single eyebrow, daring him to ask, expression his most unimpressed.

Staal gulps but, looking protective now, hisses out, "What about _Sid_?"

Sid, with the best timing Alex's ever seen, shambles down the stairs just then, hair fluffily mussed and his lips reddened and full like someone spent the night kissing him until his toes curled.

"Morning, Jordy."

Staal makes a strangled noise but manages, "Morning!" in a clear enough voice.

Sid, with concealed amusement Alex nonetheless can see clear as sunlight, presses against Alex's side in a one-armed hug.

"Morning, Sasha.  You planning on sneaking  out without saying goodbye?"

Alex hugs him back and, delighted to play along, slips a kiss in against the side of his head—nothing he hasn't done before, platonically, but much more hilarious now with Staal's wide eyes pretending not to be staring.

"Didn't want to wake you guys.  Zhenya's still asleep?"

Sid's a little delayed in responding, tucking a little closer into Alex's side, and Alex realizes he's hiding from Staal the shiver of a vision hitting.

"You know how he is," Sid says after a moment, and only because Alex's listening for it does he pick up the thread of distraction.  Sid pulls out of the hug and turns to rummage in the fridge.  "He won't get up before the sun unless he's paid to."

"Laziest," Alex agrees.  "Tell him goodbye for me?"

"For sure."

"You guys are doing this on purpose," says Staal, gaze swinging between the two of them, but he doesn't sound sure.  Sidney raises an eyebrow and takes a swig of milk straight from the carton.

"Doing what?  Oh, hey," he says, catching a look at the time on the microwave, "you guys better get going, eh?  It's getting late."

"I'm on to you, Crosby," Staal growls, but he slides off his stool.  "Ovi, you good to go?"

Alex thinks wistfully of breakfast, wondering what he can take with him.

"Leftover breakfast burritos in the fridge," says Sid, reading his mind.  "Only'll take a minute or two to heat up.  Travel safe, okay?"

Sid and Alex say goodbyes, Sid only nodding tightly at Alex's promise to call as soon as he has news.  One heated up breakfast burrito later, Alex and Staal are on the road to the airport.

"Just know I'm not fooled," Staal says several minutes into the drive, as he's changing lanes.  "I know you stayed in the guest room, then snuck upstairs right before I got there.  I don't know how those two asswads convinced you to go along with it, but I know you're all yanking my chain."

"If you say so," Alex shrugs, chewing on a grin.

Staal, in revenge, slaps his hand away from the radio every time he tries to change the station.

When they arrive at the airport, after thanking Staal for the ride, Alex pauses and says, "You know if you ask them straight out, they gonna tell you.  If you want to know what's going on between them."

Staal is quiet, tapping his thumb against the steering wheel idly.

"I know," he says after a moment.  "But after this long, that'd just be letting those bastards win, you know?"

Alex smiles widely.  "See you later, Staalsy."

Then he leaves nippy, early-morning Pittsburgh behind him, boards a plane, and goes home.

 

It doesn't take Alex the full two weeks he asked for to keep his promise and find someone to help.  This is a good thing, because Sid doesn't last the full two weeks without breaking _his_ promise, in rather spectacular fashion.

"He did _what_?" Alex snarls into his phone in Russian.  He waves off Nicky, who'd looked up from the locker room bench, alert, at the sound of his growl, understanding the tone if not the words.  Making an effort to force his voice into sounding less aggravated, Alex continues, "Fucking shit—I was going to call you two _today._  I found someone who—well, never mind that now, I'll fill you in later.  Tell me what happened.  He said he wasn't going to do anything with the mist thing again until we knew what's going on!"

Zhenya's sigh over the phone is short and exasperated.   _"Apparently that only counts when he decides it does.  It was a car crash, I didn't realize what he was up to until he was already hunched over in the passenger seat.  Fucking eight-car pile-up.  Fucking idiot."_

"There was a car crash?"

_"No, aren't you listening to me?  He stopped it from happening."_

"Tell me from the start.  Make sense."

_"This morning, I noticed he was a little off, but didn't think—he just seemed like his concussion was having a bad day.  He was distracted, distant.  He asked if I could take him into the city and I wasn't even suspicious, I was just proud of him for not trying to drive himself when his head obviously wasn't up to it.  Then when we got to the tunnel going into the city he said to me, 'I'm sorry, I know I said I wouldn't do anything, but I can't ignore this.'"_

Alex swears sharply.  He can see where this is going.  He steps out of the locker room into the hallway, finding an empty corner as Zhenya speaks.

_"He told me afterwards it would've been a big pile-up, multiple deaths.  But instead he pulled all the mist away, and it never happened."_

"Is he okay?"

_"No, he's a fucking moron.  Apparently there's no helping that.  Physically though?  He's in bed now, hopefully just sleeping and didn't actually slip into a coma or something.  He had to be carried into the house again, it was bad."_

"Shit."

_"Yeah.  He's gonna tell the team—not everything, just that he's having some complications with his gift.  They're all freaked out right now thinking all this is just from his concussion."_

"Good.  Maybe put some of them on guard duty, huh?  Don't let him leave the house."

_"Don't tempt me.  I'm this close to just locking him to the bed and being done with it."_

Peeved and worried, Alex doesn't go for an obvious dirty joke.  He checks his watch and says, "Do you need me there?  I have a game tonight, but—"

_"No, it's fine.  Also Sid will be pissed if you try to miss a game.  There's nothing to be done, anyway—not by us at least.  But you said you found someone?"_

"Yeah.  I was gonna call you after practice.  Dr. Huang, a neuropsychologist.  I'll send you her information, and when Sid's awake he can decide if he wants to send her the NDAs.  Short version—she has background with concussions, and she's been at the forefront of a lot of recent research into mental and psychic gifts.  Her combined experience seems the most likely to be useful for Sid.  And she's safe."

Zhenya makes a considering noise.   _"What's her gift?"_

"The doctor's human, but her daughter's one of ours—psychic of some sort, and I suspect a lot more powerful than is on her record.  If her being human is a deal-breaker for Sid, I understand—but I wouldn't suggest her if I weren't sure she's safe."

_"We'll just have to see what Sid says.  I'll have him call you as soon as he's up to it."_

"Good.  Until then I'll use the time to figure out a way to kill him over the phone."

_"Don't put any such thoughts in his head.  Knowing him, it'll make him want to test if he can pull the mist from over a phone call or something."_

Alex, unfortunately, has to admit that Zhenya has a point.

 _"The next time he does something like this, I'm going to dump him on your front porch and be done with him,"_ Zhenya warns testily.   _"I'm done with his stubborn shit, too much trouble."_

"That," Alex says, "is the most unlikely lie I've ever heard from you.  Nice try, though.  I need to go, I'll send you Dr. Huang's information.  Make sure Sid calls me."

Zhenya promises to and says goodbye.  Alex, scrubbing his face with one hand, returns to deflect the nosy questions of his teammates.

 

The phone call with Sid, coming worrying late into the next afternoon, goes about as well as could be expected.  Sid's both apologetic and not apologetic at all, full of stupid phrases like, _"I wasn't trying to scare anyone,"_ and _"well what else was I supposed to do?"_

"Stay home and not chase car crash mist!" Alex answers this one directly.  "How did you even know it was gonna happen?  Way Zhenya says, it sounds like you left house because you _knew_ something was gonna happen.  That's long way away from tunnel."

Sid is quiet for a heavy moment. _"I didn't know it would be a crash, not until I was closer.  I couldn't see the mist from G's house, either.  I just had an...instinct?"_

"Instinct," Alex repeats, unimpressed.

_"Yeah.  I...got this sense of the mist gathering in concentration somewhere kind of to the south, and I figured if I could feel it without seeing it then it had to be something bad.  So I went to check it out.  The mist was—really thick.  It would've been so bad, Alex, you have to understand, right?  There were kids involved."_

Alex shuts his eyes briefly.  "Fuck."

_"I couldn't figure out right away how to get a handle on the mist again.  I thought I was going to be too late.  But I got it.  And this time, when I started pulling the mist, for a moment it felt like—for a moment, it was like I could sense billions of strings, all over.  I tugged one here, and it shifted...everything, all the other strings, just the smallest amount.  I only saw it for an instant."_

Alex rubs the space between his eyes.  "This would be lots cooler, Sid, if I didn't know you're sitting in completely dark room right now trying to make your head stop aching."

 _"I read what you sent on Dr. Huang,"_ Sid says, like he thinks Alex has never heard a deflection before.   _"Good stuff, seems like she's a solid bet.  I'm sending her the NDAs, and once the doctors here clear me for travel again, I'm gonna fly out to see her.  Maybe a couple weeks."_

Alex sighs.  "That's good, Sid.  I'm glad.  So that strings thing, you have idea what that was?"

_"I actually was going to ask you about that.  Have you ever heard about anything like that, any ideas?"_

Alex considers, rolling his answer around his thoughts before speaking.  "Not sure, but, off top of my head?  You're not just seeing future, Sid. You're changing it, changing...reality.  Like guy with stroke, right?  You said you took stroke away,  erased it from existence.  You make it so his body not gonna have stroke anymore.  But that's not...isolated, yeah?  So maybe other things in world have to change so everything still makes sense, now this guy's body not gonna have stroke anymore.  You pull one string, it's connected to other strings, everything shifts just little tiny bit.  Maybe it changed something in his past, decisions that add up to stroke, or maybe it even make it so he's born with slightly different body, one that doesn't have danger of stroke.  Strings are just...translation of this your brain makes.  Understand?"

 _"I...think so?"_  Sid's quiet a long moment.   _"Fuck.  I wasn't thinking it might—I guess I wasn't really thinking the whole thing through.  You think my mutation can affect that much?"_

"It's amazing gift, Sid, really amazing."  If it weren't Sid, if it weren't for the concussion connection, Alex would probably be pissing himself with excitement and trying to get his hands on as much research into it as he could manage.  "Never heard of gift exactly like this before.  Who knows everything it can do?"

Sid makes a noise, dry and a little distracted.   _"Wanna trade?"_  He chuckles ruefully.   _"Though it's probably better this way.  What if I had your gift, and now I kept accidentally setting off explosions left and right?  That would suck."_

Alex hums thoughtfully.  "Look so badass, though."

 _"There is that."_  There's a pause, then Sid asks, a little suspiciously, _"Can you actually make explosions?"_

Alex grins.  "Not without gas source."

A moment passes as Sid takes that in.   _"Oh my god,"_ he says, laughter in his voice, _"you've definitely lit your farts on fire before, haven't you."_

"Sometimes it was accident!" Alex defends himself.  "When I was kid, my gift just starting to come in, I didn't have as good control, right?  My fire comes out when I'm mad or startled or whatever.  Sometimes when I'm kid, I accidentally let fire out when I have big fart, too."

 _"Oh jeez."_  Sid's delighted giggle warbles over the phone.   _"That's so bad, oh my god."_

"So bad," Alex agrees cheerfully.  "For few years, my family made me go outside whenever I think I'm gonna have big fart."

_"Yeah?  So growing up, you ever catch your clothes on fire?"_

"So many times.  Oh my god, yeah, so many times.  And my mama still made me wear them unless they were falling apart off me.  Wore scorch-mark clothes for, like, three years straight after my gift came in."

_"Oh jeez."_

"Mm-hm.  Zhenya though, he's always been worse than me.  Covered in animal hair or feathers, covered in animals, too.  Every time someone piss him off he send birds to shit on them.  Such little brat."

 _"I bet you've got lots of great stories,"_ Sid says fondly.  Alex checks the time.

"You doing okay talking on phone?  Head okay?  I have half hour to talk before I need to take nap, if you want."

_"You don't mind?  Distraction helps."_

"I don't mind," Alex promises warmly.  "Okay, you ever hear about time Zhenya in Russia got so mad at teammate who never pass to him, he sends pack of dogs to this kid's family apartment to howl outside all night?"

 _"What?"_ Sid says, voice sparkling with mirth.   _"He did not—really?"_

Alex grins and settles in to tell the story.

 

Sid flies out to the Rocky Mountains to see Dr. Huang shortly after the Penguins, bereft their two star forwards, are eliminated by the Lightning in the first round of the playoffs.

 **Just a bunch of tests for now** he texts Alex his second night there.   **Dr. Huang doesn't want to say anything definite until she's taken some readings.**

 **going okay?** Alex texts back.

 **We'll see.**  And then, a few minutes later, **I think so.**

Alex supposes that will have to be enough for now.

A few days later, on an afternoon between game days, Sid calls.

_"Hey, you got a few minutes to talk?"_

Alex has ice on his knee and lingering frustration from last night's game heavy in his chest.  Distraction would be nice.

"Yeah, this is good time.  Everything okay?"

 _"Everything's fine."_  There's a moment of what sounds like hushed whispering on the other end, then, in a tone of exasperated resignation, Sid says, _"First Geno says to tell you hi and that your nose is even uglier on the power play.  I don't know what that means, but there you go."_

 _"Sasha knows,"_ Zhenya's voice suddenly croons, followed by a scuffle Alex assumes is Sid shoving Zhenya away from the mouthpiece.

 _"Anyway,"_ Sid continues, _"I've got a little more news, if you'd like an update."_

"Course, Sid.  What's up?  Tests go okay?"

_"We're still waiting on some of the results, but yeah, the tests themselves didn't hurt or anything.  I thought I'd check if you were interested in hearing Dr. Huang's impressions so far."_

"Definitely.  You like her fine, Dr. Huang?"

_"She's good, yeah.  Not what I was expecting.  Geno has a crush."_

_"She's so tiny!"_ Zhenya interrupts happily, a little muted.   _"But has so much power, you know?  Huge spirit."_

_"She has some really interesting theories about my mutation.  I'll have to tell you about them later.  But as far as the new stuff goes, she basically said that it's possible my new abilities are preventing my concussion from healing.  It was…it's hard to explain it all over the phone, but that's the gist of it.  She had diagrams."_

Alex chews this over.  "So what's the plan?"

 _"For now, Geno's headed back to Pittsburgh, to get back to his own rehab."_  There's the sound of what seems to be disgruntled muttering in the background, but Sid talks over it.   _"Unless anything majorly changes when the rest of the test results are finished, I'm going to stay here for a bit.  Dr. Huang is going to work with me for a few weeks, then we'll re-evaluate from there.  Main goals are to heal the concussion and determine if, since the changes in my mutation are damage-induced, those changes are doing any further damage.  It's hard to tell right now around the concussion."_

"And if they are doing damage?"

Sid hums. _"Depends, she said.  There are a couple different options.  We'll just have to wait and see what's needed."_

"She's being careful?"

 _"Yeah.  She's running all the tests herself, no other eyes on it, which is why it's taking a little longer.  And officially, on the books, I'm only seeing her office for a concussion.  I think it's as safe as we can make it."_  There's a brief pause.   _"I met her daughter.  You were right, she's a lot stronger than her record indicates."_

"Ah."

_"Yeah.  Good kid.  Anyway, I feel good about this direction.  We'll see where it goes.  I don't want to keep you for too long, I know you're busy.  Good luck tomorrow."_

"Thanks, Sid.  Keep me updated, okay?"

_"Okay."_

_"Crush Tampa for us,"_ Zhenya interjects, voice loud like he shoved his face right up next to the phone.

"Crush Tampa, got it.  Talk to you guys later."

Sid's voice is a little muffled as he says goodbye, and before he hangs up Alex hears him already fondly bickering with Zhenya, whose voice has turned laughing and innocent.

 _"You let me sit on lap like I suggest, we not have this problem, Sid!"_ is the last thing he hears before the call disconnects.

 

They don't crush Tampa.  Instead they get swept out of the series, none of Alex's goals making any difference in the end, and Alex escapes to Russia.  There he trains, and sees family, and firmly ignores the rest of the playoffs (fuck the Bruins, anyway).  He gets periodic updates from Sid, who will tentatively admit, using roundabout language to avoid jinxing, that some progress is being made.  He gets less frequent updates from Zhenya, which aren't so much updates as they are random, unexplained pictures Zhenya takes of cute animals, himself, Sid, or some combination thereof.

The summer passes; the new season begins.  Alex, enthused anew, throws himself into games wholeheartedly, determined to make this year theirs.

Zhenya doesn't quite make it back to playing at the start of the season, but it's close.  He only misses a handful of games before he's back on the ice tearing it up like he means to make up all the points his surgery kept him from scoring.

Sid takes a little longer.  But November 20th, Alex gets a text from him.

 **Playing tomorrow** it says, and Alex immediately calls him up and spends the next ten minutes listening to his cautious, joyful voice talk about how he thinks this is it, he's really being let back out there with his team.

As far as Alex knows, Sid hasn't successfully pulled the mist stuff again since he's been meeting with Dr. Huang.  She was able to convince him to wait until his concussion was healed, much more persuasively than Zhenya and Alex, and Sid seems to have kept to that.  But his visions are still getting slowly stronger, and the distance from which he can read a vision off someone is apparently increasing.  Actual touch, he'd admitted to Alex a few weeks ago, is rarely necessary anymore.

 _"But the concussion is gone,"_ he says now, happiness unmistakable.   _"We're almost certain.  This is actually it."_

"Concussion healed now, you gonna try to learn how to pull mist again?" Alex asks neutrally.

Sid takes a moment before answering. _"That's the plan,"_ he says eventually.   _"But Dr. Huang recommends waiting until summer, to make sure everything's settled.  The concussion is gone, but we're still not sure—we're not sure what my new abilities are doing to my head.  It'll be easier to measure that now the concussion is gone, but we're going to wait until summer.  When the season's over.  Hockey first."_

Zhenya, Alex thinks, must be so relieved.  Sid sounds like himself again, with hockey at the top of his priorities.  Alex feels a softening of relief himself and can't keep the smile from his voice.

"Good.  You're gonna light it up, yeah?  Have great season.  But not too great, okay?"

Sid laughs and says goodbye.

 

Sid has a very Sid game in his return, not that Alex would've expected otherwise—two goals and two assists in a 5-0 victory.  Alex watches the highlights with a grin on his face.

But it only lasts eight games.  Sid's back out again in December, and what's more is he's quiet again on Alex's phone: minimal, cagey texts, and he never seems available when Alex calls.  The most explanation Alex gets is that there's been a setback and they're trying something new.

It sucks, but there's only so much Alex can do from Washington.  He has his own team to captain.

Early into January, Alex finally sees Sid face-to-face again.  The Penguins are in town and Sid, though not playing, is there to skate and be with his team.  He and Zhenya show up on Alex's doorstep the night before the game.

"Well thank fuck," Alex says, holding the door wider for them to step in.  "I thought maybe you guys were gonna pretend you forget where I live now."

Sid looks vaguely apologetic, but Zhenya just rolls his eyes and brushes inside, a pretty grey cat draped on his shoulders.

Alex holds an arm open for a hug towards Sid, leaving him room to refuse if he needs.  Sid leans in for the hug, and—there's nothing.  No shiver, no twitch, no sign at all of a vision hitting him.  He frowns down into Sid's face, peering close, and sees his eyes are clear and focused.

"Sid?"

"I told you he'd notice," Sid just says to Zhenya, who snorts and makes for Alex's kitchen.

"What's going on?" Alex asks warily.  He doesn't want to make a fuss, but it meant something to him that Sid no longer hid his visions from him.  If that's changed for some reason, he'd like to know why.

"I'll explain inside," Sid says.  "I'm sorry about the past few weeks, but everything's been—well, it's just easier to explain in person.  A lot's been going on."

They head for the kitchen, where Alex makes tea and sneaks sidelong glances at Sid.  He looks a little pale but otherwise seems normal.

"Okay, explain," he orders as he places the tea in front of them.  "Sid, you're hiding visions from me again?"

"Not hiding," says Sid, doctoring his tea and automatically brushing Zhenya's cat's tail away from his nose, where it had been exploring.  "I didn't get a vision when I hugged you just now."

Alex nods, starting to understand.  "So you got it earlier, without touch, like you were telling me you could.  How far away?"

But Sid shakes his head.  "I didn't get a vision at all."  He holds out his wrist, the one he wears his usual black wristband on.  He's wearing one now, but when Alex takes a second look, something looks a little off.

"You get new wristband?"

"Yeah, technically."  Sid twists his wrist around to show the underside, and Alex can see it's clunkier, heavier than he's used to seeing.  "It's a suppressor, Alex."

Alex looks up, confused.  "Suppressor?  Suppress what?"

In his steadiest voice, Sid says, "My mutation.  It's suppressing my mutation, making it so I can't access any of my powers.  I'm not getting any more death visions at all right now, unless I take it off."

Alex sits back heavily, actually speechless for a moment.  Zhenya takes advantage of this to say in Russian, "Don't be a dick about this.  Listen before you say anything stupid."

Alex ignores him.  Of course he's not going to say anything stupid.

"I only ever hear...such quiet whispers something like this might be possible someday, years away," he says to Sid.  "It really works?"

"It's got some, uh, not great side effects, but yeah, it works.  I'm completely cut off from my mutation."

"And this...you need to get this because of concussion?"

Something in Sid seems to relax a fraction when it's obvious Alex isn't about to start shouting.  "Not exactly, no.  The concussion seems to really be gone.  But once the concussion healed, my mutation started, uh, getting really strong.  I'd see visions anytime I was within ten feet of someone, and they were really...intense.  Hard to hide, and just...harder and harder to manage.  It was getting stronger every day, towards the end I could hardly even go out of the house."

Alex glances at the suppressor, unsure what to think of it.  To a casual eye, it looks just like a normal wristband.

"So Dr. Huang, she gave you this?"

"Not directly, but she was able to put me in contact with the developers.  It's all uh, extremely secretive.  The suppressors are mutant-developed, everything goes through mutant hands only, and they only give them to mutants they've vetted personally.  Even Dr. Huang can't—her daughter has one, for really bad days, and once in a while she has a client like me who she'll let the developers know about, but she can't distribute any herself.  They're just, they're doing everything possible to make sure news of the technology doesn't reach dangerous hands.  I mean, you can imagine, right, how bad it could be if the wrong people got ahold of it."

Alex can imagine.

"But you said side effects?" he asks, and Sid nods.

"Mostly just constant fatigue while I'm wearing it.  Low energy, low stamina, just kinda weak all the time.  Once in a while it'll make me a little queasy, but not often.  They're still working to get rid of the side effects, but for now they're only clearing the suppressors for use by people who are more debilitated by their mutations than they would be by the side effects."

"Sid…" Alex says, looking carefully between him and a firm-jawed Zhenya who's not lifting his eyes from the cat he's stroking.  "What about hockey?  Can't play weak like this."

"No, of course not," Sid agrees easily, and Alex has to be missing something here—no way is Sid so casual about being taken out of the game he loves with everything he is.

Zhenya rolls his eyes and nudges Sid, who blinks at him a moment before suddenly jolting.

"Oh, shit.  No, sorry, this isn't permanent for me," he quickly twists the wrist with the suppressor.  "I only have to wear this maybe a few more weeks, Dr. Huang thinks.  See, my mutation is—the way she described it is that the hit knocked something loose in my head, creating a sort of mental wound, and my mutation started growing into the space of that wound.  Right?  Except the concussion, which was separate from this wound, was actually interfering with most of the growth that was trying to happen, blocking just enough of it.  So once the concussion was gone, my powers could basically start growing unchecked into the wound, and everything kind of went to shit really fast.  It wasn't—it wasn't a natural growth, and Dr. Huang thinks it's likely my mutation would've just kept getting stronger and stronger until I was just...seeing visions 24/7 regardless of if I left the house or not."

Alex stares at him.  "Well.  Shit," is all he can say, and Sid huffs in quiet laughter.

"Yeah, pretty much.  So the suppressor is just here to cut my powers off for long enough to let the wound heal finally heal itself.  Once that space has closed up again, my mutation should stabilize and settle back in as it was, back to normal.  Dr. Huang's monitoring everything, and it already seems to be working.  So we'll just have to wait and see.  Hopefully not too much longer here."

"God, Sid.  Crazy stuff."  Alex moves to take a bracing swig of tea, hitherto forgotten, but an uncomfortable thought halts him.  "Hey.  You didn't tell me this about suppressor before now because you think I'm gonna give you shit for it?"

"No, of course not that," Sid says immediately.  "It just—it was all happening at once, it seemed like, and I wasn't sure where to even start telling you.  I wanted to be able to explain face-to-face."

Alex nods.  "Yeah, I get it."  He toys with his cup for a minute, unsure which direction he wants to take the conversation.  Finally he decides on, "I'm glad suppressors work so good.  I mean, sucks about the side effects, but it sounds like everything would've been so much worse for you without one.  It's good someone's making these, and good to keep them in mutant hands."

"Good you find Dr. Huang for us," Zhenya says, looking over at Alex with dark, speaking eyes, and Alex kicks him lightly under the table and grins.

"You mean good your stubborn husband here finally figured out how smart I am."

Sid raises his eyebrows, a dorky, amused smile already spreading.  "Husband, huh?"

"Yeah.  Hey, on that bet your team made—you know, if you guys dating, fuck buddies, friends?"

"Yeah?"

"Anyone make bet that you two are already married?"

"We're not married."

"You're a little married.  But anyone make that bet?"

"No," Sid says, checking briefly with Zhenya.  "I don't think so."  Zhenya shakes his head.

"Maybe next time we play Rangers, though," he says, grinning at Sid.  "Legal in New York.  Get married then?"

"For sure," says an equally grinning Sid.

Alex honestly can't tell how much they're joking.  "Hey," he says indignantly, "it's legal _here_ too.  You ever get married, you gotta come do it here and let me be best man!"

"We're not getting married, come on," Sid laughs.

"Not this year," Zhenya agrees with his voice full of mischief.

"All right, all right," Alex throws his hands up, biting his smile.  "Like to keep everyone guessing, right?  Seriously, though—you ever really get married, rules of being fellow mutants mean you have to tell me.  I'll help you keep it secret, find you very best venue.  Deal?"

"Deal," Sid says, pink from all the grinning.

Zhenya nods as well.  "Fine.  But gonna make tiger best man, not you.  I already promise him."

And that part?  Out of everything, Alex knows that part's almost definitely not a joke.

 

It takes longer than Alex hoped for, but early into March he gets a text from Sid just as he's about to slip into a restaurant with a few of his teammates.

**Suppressor officially off, mist gone, mutation normal.  Cleared for play.**

And then, just a few seconds after, Sid sends one more on its heels:   **Thank you, Sasha.**

"What are you grinning about?" Nicky asks suspiciously, holding the door open.

"Nothing," Alex says, tucking his phone away, smile unabated.  "Just got some news."

"Yeah?  Good news?"

"Sid's coming back."

Nicky smiles, his tiny, sincere one.  "That's good to hear."

"Yeah.  Hey—you know how to make friendship bracelets?  I'm gonna send one to Sid, as congratulations."

"We can ask Nuevy.  Goalies know these things."

"Awesome."

Alex ducks through the door and, happiness like fire in his bones, he and Nicky follow their teammates inside.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] BFFs by Withershins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10511751) by [brightnail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightnail/pseuds/brightnail)




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